Am I wasting my time?

[BCH]

Hello all,

I attended West Point (Military Academy) and graduated in 2015 with a pre-med focus. While I only had a 3.1 GPA overall, I did have a 3.6 GPA in my "pre-engineering" courses which included Multivariable Calc, ODEs, and Stats in regards to Math. I would not be enrolling until the fall of 2020 and want to use my time to prepare my profile for admission to a top MFE program, acknowledging that I would still need to take courses such linear algebra among others to satisfy pre-reqs/be competitive. I understand it will take work, but I am willing to do whatever is necessary, so long as I stand a fair chance when it is all said and done. In summary, would I be wasting my time down this path? I would greatly appreciate any insight or opinions you have to offer.

 

[pingu]

You won't. Being a West Point Graduate will give you a lot of pull

 

[Ken Abbott]

Thank you for your service.

I have mentored with a number of vets in this area and know several successful Wall Street quants who also happen to be USMA grads. You should work first, then leverage the GI Bill.

PM me.

 

[Philip_Mitterrand]

You stand a chance at top B schools as they love Military types. Columbia even waive app fees on Vets. Even after a MFE you won't be as competitive against someone with a PhD in Structural Mechanics. Why bother if you can walk into Wharton, HYP cheaply and you can always pick some quant classes to quench your thirst ?

Hello all,

I attended West Point (Military Academy) and graduated in 2015 with a pre-med focus. While I only had a 3.1 GPA overall, I did have a 3.6 GPA in my "pre-engineering" courses which included Multivariable Calc, ODEs, and Stats in regards to Math. I would not be enrolling until the fall of 2020 and want to use my time to prepare my profile for admission to a top MFE program, acknowledging that I would still need to take courses such linear algebra among others to satisfy pre-reqs/be competitive. I understand it will take work, but I am willing to do whatever is necessary, so long as I stand a fair chance when it is all said and done. In summary, would I be wasting my time down this path? I would greatly appreciate any insight or opinions you have to offer.

 

[TraderJoe]

Whatever Philip_Mitterrand said above is exactly correct.
You are ideal match for Harvard MBA

 

[Ken Abbott]

Whatever Philip_Mitterrand said above is exactly correct.
You are ideal match for Harvard MBA

Don't write off the possibility of quant finance, however. West Point grads are generally engineers or econ majors, as I recall.

 

[Drew L]

You aren't wasting your time at all. If I were you I'd start on taking all the "pure math" courses you can at a local uni in town. They shouldn't be as hard as West Point engineering but they will give you a great understanding of the concepts you're going to need to perform financial engineering. Grad schools love that too.
Make sure you take
Analysis aka Advanced Calculus
Linear Algebra
Probability

For financial engineering you can never take too much analysis so do all that you can. It's not that hard once you get started and tbh it makes all Math you encounter after that much easier. You can never take too much Probability either.
You ain't gonna need linear algebra past the 1st course but probability and statistics are crucial and actually a topology class would be really helpful for understanding their approach.

IMO I wouldn't worry about taking a programming course before you go to your MFE program since they'll teach it to you there anyway.